The Role of the Product Owner

As Agile Scrum Masters, we are typically faced with many questions. Here we are focusing on the questions asked around the Product Owner’s role. Following this, we will be addressing a few of the most frequently asked questions in a series of posts related to other topics when implementing agile.

Question:

What is the role of the Product Owner in the sprint boundary meetings?

Answer:

During a Stand-up: Product Owner is allowed to attend. He/she typically attend the stand-up to be available to the team to clarify anything on requirements if raised as an impediment during the stand-up. After 15 min or when the stand-up is completed he/she can then attend to these questions.

During Grooming: In the Grooming session the Product Owner priorities the Sprint back log with the team. He/she ensures that there is enough detail / requirements on a story for it to be estimated by the scrum team.

During Planning session 1: Part one of the sprint planning meeting is a review of the product backlog. During this part of the meeting, the team will ask the Product Owner to clarify questions and the Product owner and Team will negotiate “What” will be taken into a sprint. By the end of sprint planning session one, the team will select a sprint goal: a one-sentence description of the overall outcome of the sprint.

During Planning session 2: During session two of the sprint planning meeting, the team decides “THE HOW”. In this meeting the team will begin breaking up the product backlog items into work tasks. He/she should be available during this meeting but does not have to be in the room. If the product owner does remain in the room, the Scrum Master needs to take charge of this part of the meeting, keeping the team focused and free to explore possibilities without being limited by the product owner’s own ideas or opinions. The outcome of session two planning will be in the Sprint backlog.

Review session: The review is meant to look at what has been produced and still remains to be done. Here the Developers can show stakeholders, Product Owners and the team what they have done. In this meeting the Product owner has the right to either reject or accept a particular piece of work.

Sprint Retro meeting: The Product Owner is only allowed to attend the Retro if the team has asked for him/her to join in on the session.